Saturday, August 08, 2009

South Africa continued their good run of form with another Tri Nations win, this time against the Wallabies in Cape Town. They strengthened their grip on the tournament with the 29-17 victory over the tourists.

The third win in a row for them in this years tournament, they've now won all their home matches, which is imperative if you aim to stand a chance of taking the title.

Morne Steyn once again stepped up as he kicked 24 points with seven penalties and a drop goal. The Wallabies took an early lead from an excellent second minute converted try to Adam Ashley-Cooper, but the home side then came back and took control through the boot of Steyn.

A Berrick Barnes left footed dropkick halted the Boks' progress momentarily, but then Steyn kicked a drop of his own, followed by Victor Matfield scoring from a neat kick ahead from captain John Smit.

Matt Giteau was sinbinned for a reckless challenge on Fourie Du Preez, followed by Richard Brown going off for a professional foul, shortly after that. The Springboks went into the break 23-10 up, with 15 men against 13.

Steyn kept slotting them after the break, but Giteau came back and scored a fantastic individual effort, giving the Wallabies hope as they looked to make a comback.

George Smith was carded too, for a cynical bit of play that clearly came from frustration, and Steyn slotted his final penalty two minutes from time, sealing the comfortable win for the Boks.

South Africa now lead the table with 12 points, followed by New Zealand on four, and Australia, having played a game less, on one.

posted by GMC at
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125 Comments:

first...brussow continues to impress and was once again immense at the breakdown!! Credit is due to James O'Connor who's been given a bit of abuse on rugbydump recently...his counter attacking 2day was suburb and always looked dangerous with ball in hand and he was also solid under a high ball!!

After RD giving him such a warm up with tribute, bar the try, I can't remember Giteau having such a poor game. Agree with 'bigox'. Barnes had a good game and had assumed 1st reciever role before Giteau went to the bin.

Disapointed with Australia, SA did deserve to win, but they didn't need to get out of 2nd gear.

SA have 3N nearly wrapped up. 1 win or even 3 loses with 3/4 bonus points and its theirs. Unless, Aus and NZ have some big wins against eachother, which in any case may help SA.

I can see SA beating Aus at least once away and maybe even sneaking it against NZ, they're that poor (honestly, when was the last time NZ had played 6 lost 3). Though Carter had good game for Canterbury and came through some heavy punishment.

as for giteua's sin binning deserving a citing ARE YOU ******* SERIOUS?!

this is rugby, a contact game. he was originally going for the ball, saw the man in front of him and instinstictively/stupidly jumped into him in defence. if its a citing then i truly wonder what this world is coming to.

as a person who hates mccaw with all his heart, and i seriously just mean unparalled hatred. i believe that mccaw is better than brussow on his day, mccaw isnt even match fit yet and is too busy leading a broken side to play his own game. dont get me wrong brussow is good, but DEFINITELY not better than mccaw. go SA. :)

I haven't watched the whole game yet. But.................... regardless of your Tri-nations loyalty, Giteau is not known to be a dirty player. I think the Adrenaline of the rushing for the High ball made him commit that error. It was unprofessional. Something I would expect from Burger,the Old Rocky Elsom and Jerry Collins. Once again I named the Tri-Nations bad-boys. Bakkies is a bitch! His lesson is coming. I group Giteau with Carter and the likes of Muliaina when it comes to Sportsmanship. They have rare occurences. Let's forgive Giteau!

Brussow makes me appreciate a hard grinding blindside like never before, cox he's the type to clean those f**kers out from every single ruck.As a neutral spectator, the Boks with Piennar is more exciting to watch, but with a pack like that it's hard to drop someone like M Styen who bag all the 3 pointers

As for the binning of Giteau I don't think the intent was anything malicious. But then he completely misjudged his run and he was not any position to contend for the ball, which made it looked so reckless so he did bring it upon himself

I don't like the comparison between McCaw and Brussow.McCaw is arguably the most all rounded rugby player in the world - if the situation needs him to be a ball carrier, he will grind the hard yards, if he needs to play with the backs, he will keep the back line going.Brussow is a specialist in the break down, and Springboks can afford the luxury of having him because they have the most powerful pack in the world - if you cannot bring down the ball carrier, there's nothing to fetch.

Sounds like sour grapes. Stop being so jealous of how good the Boks are. Boring rugby? please. The reason why they couldn't score tries was due to the Australians spoiling tactics, hence the penalties and yellow cards. The Boks are playing Bulls rugby and once they click, you will see scores like that of the super 14 final.

How amusing that the South Africans go all up in arms at Giteau's actions. The Saffers have long been regarded as the dirtiest nation to play against (Corne Krige, Robbie Fleck, Burger) yet they can't deal with anyone doing anything to their beloved Bokke. Not saying it shouldn't have been a yellow I just love the commentators reaction. A good game to watch but must say I find SA very boring to watch, no ambition or flair. Their game plan is based on the Steyns kicking the ball as far as they can, Matfield and Botha contesting the line out and then maybe, just maybe when they get to the oppo's 22 they'll try and score. otherwise, just give it Morne or Francois and go for a droppy.

BOKS - WORLD CHAMPSBOKS - WON ALL AI'S LAST YEAR (RECORD SCORE AGAINST ENG COMES TO MIND...)BOKS - LIONS CHAMPSBOKS - BEAT AB'S 2XBOKS - BEAT OZAND WE STILL HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN CHALLENGED YET... and we haven't even played at our true potential ...Hmmmm - jealous maybe - thought so!!!!

THe only reason you hate our players, team etc - IS BECAUSE WE ARE JUST TOOOOOOO DAMN GOOD & YOU KNOW IT. call us dirty, blah, blah blah boring blah blah blah.... call us what you like BUT - WE ARE WORLD CHAMPS and don't give a damn what everyone else says -YOU CAN ONLY DREAM THAT YOUR TEAM WILL HAVE A FORWARD PACK LIKE OURS SOMEDAY - I SAY - KEEP DREAMING AND WE WILL WIN ALL THE CUPS UNDER THE SUN!!!!!!!!

BRUSSOW - what a player! And those complaining about comparing him to mccaw - I agree - how can you compare them - brussow is MUCH younger and this is only like his 4/5 test??? HE IS ONLY GANNA GET BETTER!!!!!

From a neutral fan - the aussies played such spoiling, negative rugby to try to stop the boks from scoring tries - and as the boks are such a professional side they took the 3 points, nothing wrong with that. giteau should have been given a RED CARD, no intention to go for the ball at all!!!

Just last week i heard some Bok commentators saying the JP Peterson is the best cover defender in the world. But that was one of the worst attempts of a tackle ive seen in a long time.

Id have to say O Driscoll is the best all rounder in the world. He is dynamite in offense as seen all season long and he grinds hards yards like a forward too eg. the two winning tries he scored against england and wales in the six nations. He drops goals aswell. He is the best centre in the world at getting in rucks and turning over ball easily.

I think that the Boks will have a real tough time at beating Ireland in the autumn series. Ireland and South Africa are the two teams in form in the world and i think that is gonna be tha game of the year.

If ireland played NZ today they would get hammered easily. Theres something not right with them right now and ireland are in a great place right now i gotta say. Some of the best players in the world in their position are from ireland

Yeah I agree with anonymous above. Saying SA are in the same league as Ireland is an outrage. Ireland beat them senseless the last time they played.Anyway, is anyone else sick of how cocky all these South Africans are now? At least when New Zealand were the big team in rugby they didn't go around pointing it out to everyone and insulting everyone else and claiming that the team aren't even playing well, and that every other team is shit. And claiming that Steyn is the best outhalf in the world and the player of the year is simply folly. He kicks goals and that's it.

kearney for tests - temper temper! Who said steyn is the best??? As for NZ never saying that they are the best in the world when they were no. 1 - maybe because they never won a world cup when they were no.1???? Anyway - why can't we say we are WORLD CHAMPS AND NO 1 - when that is EXACTLY what we are??? IF ierland ever become world champs or no. 1 - I'm sure you would be the first to yell it out to the world!!!!!! And until then - don't compare the BOKS to ierland - cause you ganna come up short in that argument mate!!! Now go and have a beer and see if you can chill and wait until the next world cup to see what ireland can do!

Credit to SA for winning the game. Disappointed by Australia. And bored to death by this game Habana must play solitaire on his wing... Reminds me of England in 2003. Unfortunately - to me, it's one way of winning games. To one to enthuse the kids, though, and get them to play this sport we love. But fair on the Booke for winning it all.

Anyone else scared of what this bok side is capable of when they actually start to use their backs... I think they are just going to go for the one away win in aus and nz to secure the 3n and then we may see them use the likes of habana and Jacque fourie more often..scary if you think about it. Just don't think we will see it until they have the 3N trophy! (and this from a neutral fan)

giteau's intention is clearly to smash into dupreez, his eyes never get close to the ball

he deserves min. 2weeks, but who knows what citing commisionner will say cos of all the recent mis-citings-bans

-burger eye-gouge shuld have had min 3months

-b.botha at the breakdown didnt deserve ban

-sergio parisse "eye-gouge" 8weeks but its actually an accidental contact between the italians hand, and the nz's cheek...)

if gits is banned i reckon, deans'll move barnes up to 10 and quade cooper at 12 ( eventough i would have cooper at 10 and barnes at 12, like they do for the reds, cos they are probably more used to it)

Matt Giteau should not be representing Australia no matter how good he might be as a no10 - that deliberate elbow to the face of a worthy oponent deminishes the skill and guts of our team - he wasn't even looking for the ball, never mind competing for it! Matt Giteau was a flyhalf with great potential who stuffed it up with a complete lack of discipline.

I've never seen the ozzies so rattled & ill-disciplined. The boks made both the ozzies and kiwi's crack, forcing these two top teams to make so many errors and backchat the ref and give away so many penalties & cards...hmmm looks like if you can't beat them you gana try ANYTHING...

About a month ago, everyone was wondering if Steyn should be the flyhalf or not. It seems clear now that he's the man for the job. He's doing what Dan Carter did for the AB's a few years ago - scoring and/or setting up all their points.

Giteau is going to have to take the heat for what he did. Not going for the ball. He figured he'd try to time it perfectly and if he missed, oh well, at least he'd get to take somebody out. He could be looking at a couple weeks for that one.

The Tri-Nations is South Africa's to lose. We'll see what the AB's can do against them in NZ, but SA's got it all together right now.

'SA are turning into the Pomms - ie playing BORING Rugby. The only way they can get their points is from the boot, just like England.'

theyve won all their games comfortably. who cares where points come from, its a win. other teams have to concede penalties for the bokks to take the 3 points so Aus can only be looking at themselves. if they concede penalties to stop tries then that is a credit to the SA teams

Brussow reminds me of exactly what McCaw was when he first came on the scene. He is an unrelenting pursuer of the ball.

McCaw has not always been well rounded. He grew into that role. However, his breakdown ability has also diminished significantly. When you play the style of 'fetcher' that the two of them play, your body takes a pounding and players always have trouble sustaining that level of play.

McCaw may be more well rounded now, but I would trade the McCaw that runs, tackles, passes, and kicks for the one that just flies around winning ball.

McCaw may be a 'better player' due to his well roundedness, but Brussow is infinitely more valuable right now.

to anonymouse above:'Can't take these Northern hemisphere refs - get them outta the 3n!!!!!!!!!!'

We invented the game,we should know the rules. See what the super 14 ELV's did, boooring. Look how Boks are using the rolling maul now.

About the game, moment of madness from Giteau, will get cited no doubt. Boks win again, no surprise really, australia didn't challenge and were outplayed in places. Very solid in the scrum though.

For me, Beast and Habana are overrated. Brussouw, Matfield and Steyne were awesome, they are the real game changers. Bok forwards, incredible at the breakdown and strong throughout. Game was won there.

Is anyone else bored with teams kicking penalties? Also have you ever noticed that the best team in the world just has the most on-form 10 with a set of decent forwards? It used to be England with Wilkinson, now it's SA with Steyn. Fair enough if it works, but it's boring as hell!

Too many penalties, too many cards.Typical NH ref.Well done Boks, best team in the world at the moment.For the Irish - you've gotta be joking if you think your team would have a chance against the Boks away from home. Living in a fantasy world.

I don't know why people are saying that the SA pack will never be dominated.. The lions if I recall done them in pretty good. Yeah the beast got Vickery in the fist half on the test, but Adam Jones changed that and Vickery stepped back up and think the Lions pack had that better of them in the overall series.

yeah i agree to comment above!!! lets be honest, the boks scraped the win in the first and second test, like winning it in the last 5 minutes both times, also when the lions players were all going off with injuries.. showed in the third test when the lions utterly dominated the boks and got a bigger winning margin in that last test than the boks did with the 2 combined.

yah, you're totally right. the lions winning margin in the third (and totally meaningless) test is a clear indication that the boks aren't as great as everyone says they are. let's be honest, if the boks hadn't been resting many of their better players in that third test they wouldn't have beaten the all blacks and wallabies on three consecutive weekends. if they were any good they would have white-washed the lions in three straight tests then scored bonus points wins in each of their first three tri-nations games.i mean get a grip people, 5 wins out of 6 against the best 3 teams in the world (including two over a combined side from 4 nations) over the course of 2 months is nothing to get excited about. it happens all the time! stop overrating these boks!

Giteau has a very good disciplinary record. That aside, if the citing commissioner simply looks at the video, it shows he has his head down, and does not look for the ball. On that alone, it deserves a suspension.

Whatever the guidelines are [for charging into a player in the air], there is a band with a top end and bottom end of time to serve the suspension.

Giteau deserves to sit at least one game. And if he gets only one, it's because he's a clean player to date, and thus on the low end of the suspension.

When guys like Botha and Burger get suspended, many SA fans have a knee-jerk reaction.

The reality is that the IRB has entire file cabinets with citings for these guys. Thus, when they are found guilty, the suspension invariably ends up at the top end of the guidelines.

On another note, I was disappointed to not see the Boks able to convert more points during the 2-man bin. It looked like the Boks got too crazy with the ball and tried to open it up just a little too much.

Highlights for me:1. Smit's chip kick, finished up by Victor Matfield2. Brussouw. As a 1.78M backrow, I love seeing someone bring his aspects to the game.

Burger is a solid player, but he plays the typical direct, Boer rugby -- notice how he runs at defenders? He's out to make a statement, not to open up play. That to me is more of a blind side's play. Leave Broussow at the open side fetcher role. Put Juan Smith on the bench and make him an impact sub, or have he and Burger fight for the #7 (blind side) jersey.

"Don't you dare compare the Boks to Ireland, a team that has never, ever beaten NZ." Yeah it was just one of our provinces that beat the all blacks.

And to Jon above, blaming the ref will get you nowhere. Do you genuinely think the aussies were disciplined? The Irish are not saying they would beat SA away from home, just that we can't wait to have a crack at them in the Autumn.

quite entertaining game. i have to be honest though morne steyn scoring a majority of boks points is starting to get a bit annoying, hes a really good kicker but surely there is some more attacking flair? disgusted with giteau that was shocking, i had been supporting Aus from the first minute coz i wanted to see boks lose a home game to make things more interesting for when they tour, and watching james o'connor shine was a delight he is looking to be one of the great rising stars, pity mortlock left the field aswell i like to see him play. but yet again the man on form really is brussow, just seems to steal more and more ball every week. think we can see more of him for a long time to come. but not to burst bubbles to all the bok braggers on here (and dont say im a bad loser im a neutral here) its alright doing this at home, you show your real dynamite when your not on home turf.. keep your mouths shut incase it comes back to bite you on the away leg of the tour.

The Aussies weren't as bad as the ref seemed to think they were, just as the All Blacks weren't that bas the week before.More relevant to what I was saying is the tendency for NH refs to reach for the whistle and the cards far too quickly and end up deciding test matches. They seem to think the crowd pays money to watch them.It makes test matches frustrating and boring to watch.

just to add a bit more, i was also frustrated with Francois Steyn.. one steyn kicked everything, the other run all the time and waited till it was to late to look for a pass. a few time i was screaming at the tv coz i could see habana stood outside him.. seriously.. whos gonna make yards faster, steyn or habana? no contest. and Smit.. if morne ever got injured i think boks have a top class outside half there did you see that kick :L

STOP talking about how the bladdy lions were better than the boks, better forwards blah blah blah - if they were better - they would have won - ANYWAY - it is FOUR countries against ONE!!!!!!!! In all the 3n matches the Boks have never looked like losing!!! DEAL WITH IT !!!!!

Can you imagine the reaction from a NH side if they won a series against a combined team from SA,NZ & OZ and then went on to beat the boks 2x in a row and NZ once....hmmmmm So to say that the SA fans are gloating and shouldn't until they travel is all bull.... any team could only dream of their success...let them enjoy it ( from a neutral fan)

And by the way, I was at the game, the Giteau incident happened right in front of me, it was nothing but MALICIOUS! He claim he was jumping for the ball, he arrived way before the ball, and made no effort to catch it. He was trying to injure the best scrum half in world rugby.

As I said in my last post, I would be disgraced by the wallabies dirty performance!

Yeah, or maybe NH refs are pedantic and overeager to pull out cards and blow the whistle.Lots of things could be considered a yellow card, it's subjective.A good ref is very, very sparing with cards. We've seen two test matches and six yellow cards, with two NH refs.That's not a coincidence.If you like pedantic officiating, fine, just keep your attention whore refs in Europe.

Maybe O'Gara should have been cited then, both clumsy and nothing more. I just don't understand Giteau's reasoning. He's 5'8 and challenging one of the best high ball fielders in the game. He was having a bad game and lost his composure for a couple of seconds.

On the SH fans moaning about the reffing. 3 yellows, all deserving as previous post points out. Had Smith and Brown not infringed, then SA may have scored tries, which I gather posters complain they're not doing, because opposition are illegally slowing down. If a ref blew for every single offence in the game, there'd be as many stoppages as American Football. I'm satisfied refs are finally clamping down on little offences like scrum feed, not binding and so on. They are after all trying to rid the sport of these mistakes for the long term betterment of the sport.

Finally as a neutral, as a winning team I don't think SA or their fans care that they're not entertaining. A win is a win. Yes we'd all like to see Habana receive 1st phase ball but I think he'll take winning over not scoring tries any day. Yes I'm Irish, not blinkered, like some on here, hopefully. I find it hard to take that we haven't beaten NZ in 104 years, 0 wins, 1 draw, 23 defeats. All some Irish suggest here is that its a pity we don't play NZ and SA more. We catch NZ when they are on a roll and it can be frustrating. However, I can't wait for Ire v SA in Nov. We have only played twice in last 5 seasons. Very poor organisation from an Ire pov. I would love if we played all 3N every year. Granted we'd lose alot but be better for it in the end.

I just realised that although everyone calls Steyn a goal-kicking machine, all the penalties he kicked were from fairly straightforward positions. There were none from the touchline or anything, so you'd expect any international outhalf to get them. Just thought I'd point that out.

so the only backline move of the game for the boks is steyn throwing the ball into peterson face so they have to rely on hookers to do they playmaking, another snooze fest from south africa thankyou again.

These aren't the best highlights (better ones on the auzzie rugger site) shows how the boks forwards dominated. This bok side is truely scary to watch & I must say if their backs start to come to the party - I don't see any team being able to match them (though it pains me greatly to admitt this!)

Just watched some the match again and to be honoust - the reason the boks kick so much is because they know that there is an 80% chance their forwards will win the ball back at the breakdown (gaining much ground in the process) Simple but oh so very,very effective. Gotta hand it to PDV - although he comes across as an ass - he knows his rugger...

LOL any Aussie having a go at the Saffers for promoting their current form and being proud is ignorant and or totally unaware of how arrogant they are. The funny thing is that most people I have met (non Aussie or Saffer) generally prefer Saffers. Moreover I have never met an Aussie who doesn't think they are are best in the world at everything and most have little if not no idea of what occurs outside of Aus (And they call Americans ignorant).